Monday, seven in the evening.
Night had fallen, but the Metropolitan Police Department Headquarters in Kasumigaseki, Chiyoda Ward, was still brightly lit.
With jurisdiction over more than a hundred police stations in the Tokyo Metropolis and a directly supervised workforce exceeding forty thousand, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department was unquestionably a massive organization.
"I never thought I'd be working overtime on my first day at headquarters. If I'd known, I would've stayed at Nakano Police Station."
In an office on the second floor of the Metropolitan Police Department Headquarters, the middle-aged Yuuji Kanbara still looked utterly dejected. He stared at the pork cutlet rice bowl delivered to his desk without the slightest appetite.
Over the past week, he had eaten so many pork cutlet rice bowls that he was ready to throw up.
After that harrowing day, Yuuji Kanbara had acted out of his sense of duty as a public servant, faithfully recording his encounter with an evil spirit and his contact with a superhuman in a report before submitting it.
He had expected such an absurd report, practically an account of a close encounter of the third kind with aliens, to be rejected. He might even have gotten a furious dressing-down from the station chief. Instead, after submitting it that evening, he was taken into custody when he arrived at work the next morning.
He was then escorted to the Metropolitan Police Department Headquarters and interrogated day and night. Several groups of psychiatrists and psychologists even came to assess his mental state.
Even after he had recounted every detail of that day over and over, the interrogators refused to let him go, repeatedly grilling him about every little detail. They stopped short of torture, but the relentless surprise questioning was still more than the aging Yuuji Kanbara could bear. It drained most of his energy and spirit, leaving him looking as though he might drop dead at any moment.
After being held for who knew how many days and signing several confidentiality agreements, Yuuji Kanbara was finally released.
Before he could even leave the Metropolitan Police Department Headquarters, he received a transfer order, moving him directly from Nakano Police Station to the Criminal Affairs Department's Fourth Investigation Division at headquarters.
Of course, it was not all bad news. Yuuji Kanbara had been promoted straight from Senior Police Officer to Assistant Inspector, and his salary had gone up a grade as well. For an officer like him who had not entered through the career-track system, this was a crucial step forward.
"Inspector Kanbara, you should at least eat something. There's an important meeting coming up. Every investigator in the Criminal Affairs Department's Fourth Investigation Division and the Public Security Bureau's Fifth Division who isn't on assignment has been called in. I hear even the Superintendent General will be attending! As the first officer to make contact with a superhuman, you're bound to be questioned."
A male officer wearing glasses, his somewhat long black hair tied into a simple ponytail that hung over his chest, set a bag of bread, energy bars, and instant ramen in front of Yuuji Kanbara.
"Uh, thank you, Superintendent Uchiha."
Yuuji Kanbara could hardly refuse the kindness of his immediate superior. He took a yakisoba bun from the bag and began nibbling at it halfheartedly.
Uchiha Senmon smiled, returned to his desk, and picked up a document to read.
Looking at Superintendent Uchiha, who appeared nearly twenty years younger than him but was actually less than ten years his junior, Yuuji Kanbara rubbed his stubbled chin. The thought of serving under this man from now on left him with decidedly mixed feelings.
He swallowed the bun in a few bites, opened a bottle of mineral water, and took a swig before hesitantly asking:
"Superintendent Uchiha, do you know what tonight's meeting is about?"
Uchiha Senmon set down the document, adjusted his glasses, and thought for a moment before replying:
"You weren't the only one who encountered a human superhuman last week. Officer Odagiri from the Public Security Bureau and a group of colleagues witnessed another one. They even clashed with him. The appearance of human superhumans is unprecedented for the Metropolitan Police Department! A meeting at a time like this must be about those two."
"Is it really that big a deal?"
"Inspector Kanbara, now that you've joined the Criminal Affairs Department's Fourth Investigation Division, you have access to the relevant classified files. You should know why the Metropolitan Police Department established the division, shouldn't you?"
Yuuji Kanbara could not help recalling the origins of the Criminal Affairs Department's Fourth Investigation Division.
The Criminal Affairs Department's Fourth Investigation Division had originally been responsible for investigating cases involving violent groups and organized crime, but after 2003, it had been incorporated into the Organized Crime Countermeasures Department.
When the Fourth Investigation Division was reestablished ten years later, its remit was completely different. It had become a special division tasked with handling supernatural incidents.
"To deal with the increasingly frequent supernatural incidents in recent years, and investigate and apprehend Unident... something Object?"
"Unidentified Supernatural Object. An unidentified supernatural entity," Uchiha Senmon said, enunciating the three English words clearly.
"That's the official term used in internal documents for the supernatural beings that appear in this country. They're divided into two broad categories: corporeal Type A and incorporeal Type B. In private, though, investigators like us prefer to call Type A yokai and Type B evil spirits."
"Exactly! That's what we ought to call them." Yuuji Kanbara, who struggled with English, nodded repeatedly.
"I never imagined evil spirits and yokai really existed. I thought those stories my grandmother told me as a child about kappa stealing shirikodama were just meant to scare me."
"As far as kappa go, those really are just stories. So far, we haven't found any of the yokai from folklore, like kappa, zashiki-warashi, or tsukumogami."
Uchiha Senmon gave a hearty laugh and said:
"Inspector Kanbara, although your security clearance is only level one, you still have access to the most basic information. You should read more when you have time. Although we call Type A yokai, they differ somewhat from the traditional idea of yokai."
"Not only do their forms and appearances bear no resemblance to the yokai of myth and legend, but although the Type A specimens discovered so far possess some supernatural abilities, they can't turn invisible or become immune to physical attacks like the yokai in folklore. Firearms work on them just as well. In fact, some researchers consider Type A nothing more than beasts that have mutated for unknown reasons and gained special abilities. They believe we shouldn't even call them yokai, but mutant beasts or esper beasts instead."
"Is that how it is? Ha ha... Having to go through induction training at my age is a real headache."
Yuuji Kanbara felt a little embarrassed. Although he now had access to the records room, he had been so mentally and physically exhausted lately that he had only skimmed the beginning of the material and read no further.
"You're only a few years older than me, Inspector Kanbara. You're still young."
Yuuji Kanbara racked his brain to recall the files he had read, then asked in some confusion:
"According to the records, there were no superhumans among us humans. Master Chiriku was the first confirmed human superhuman, and he even helped destroy an evil spirit. In that case, why put Master Chiriku on the wanted list?"
"I opposed putting that monk named Chiriku on the wanted list. We shouldn't take that kind of attitude toward superhumans. We should find a more appropriate way to approach them. But the Public Security Bureau's Fifth Division insisted, and there was nothing I could do." A shadow crossed Uchiha Senmon's eyes as he spoke helplessly.
Just then, a female clerical worker appeared in the doorway:
"Superintendent Uchiha, Section Chief Akagi has asked you to come to the conference room for the meeting."
"All right. Inspector Kanbara, you're attending this meeting too. Let's go together."
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